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product, which will be operable on the Mac, DOS, and OS/2, both in the character mode and under Presentadon Manager, and we are doing the bulk of our development on Macs.

What is it about the Mac that suits it to your application and vice versa?

DF: I think they are well suited to each other. Let me give you a couple of examples. First of all, a graphical image of the work areas, the databases, and the relations that you establish between databases is very useful in interpreting at a glance what your setup is. Under DOS [FoxBASE +Jyou can only see that in tabular form or in terms of the program you just executed. That’s not very informative.

Another obvious area where the Mac shines is in a screen painting capacity. Our screen painter is a Mac-Draw style implementation, object-oriented, where you pick up fields and drag them around with the mouse, and select groups of fields, ungroup them, change font, pattern, et cetera. In the layout of screens, forms, reports, labels -- that kind of thing the Mac can do a better job because of the graphical interface.

I think there’s a little more to it also. I think that the dBASE language, because it’s a very mature and full featured language whatever its other virtues or defects is quite regular. That makes it harmonious with the regularity and consistency of the Mac interface more so than some of the Mac databases that have

been previously developed.

Were you unable to Implement any features of FoxBASE on the Mac, and are there features on the Mac version that simply didn’t exist In the PC version?

DF: ...Eric had the DOS version of FoxBASE essentially intact on the Mac within three weeks. The rest of the nine months was spent outfitting it with the Mac interface, which was an experience for all of us.

The language is identical, although there are many extensions. For example, user screens can take advantage of interactive devices like pop-ups, radio buttons, check boxes, and memo fields which can be edited in scrollable rectangular regions on screen, so there are many extensions. Obviously the inclusion of a picture data type is another example.

Do you think that the Mac version is, either from a developer’s or an end user’s point of view, better than the DOS version?

DF: No question. Adam Green got FoxBASE + IMac in a very early alpha copy, and since then he’s been doing all his Dbase programming on the Mac and porting it back to DOS.

The advantage is that, for example, you can have up to twenty program editing windows open simultaneously. You can cut and paste between programs. You can pull down a menu option, execute a program, and when an error occurs it throws up an editing window with the program in it ready to be modified. Also, the debugging environment is so much better on the Mac. I think it’s far better than the DOS product. We

view it as the pilot product; all of our future products should look very much like this one.

How straightforward a process was It for you to work with the Mac Toolbox?

EC: Well, it wasn’t especially difficult; it was just a lot of code. A lot of the work fell in the category of having to maintain several separate data structures which all mimicked each other, and you had to make sure they were all constantly in line so that the display would be consistent and integral. But it wasn’t really a big deal.

DF: The fact is that for most programmers it would have been a three year project. Eric took about three weeks. There’s no magic here. Just talent.

AF: With regard to the view window, coming up with a design was probably easier than getting it implemented. I think implementing a view window and all the panels in it be- came easier after the first item was done. In other words, once you were familiar with all the tools and had learned how to use them, the rest of it fell into place.

It was like learning an entirely different computer language. Even though you’re actually writing in C, there’s so much new information in commands and calls that it’s a whole new language.

WF: There was a mental adjustment of almost literally turning your mind inside out. Where normally in programming you think of the program driving the user, in the Mac interface the user manipulating things drives a program. The conceptual gap that you have to bridge is very large; that’s the big step that you have to take before you can actually create something Mac-like.

EC: The process is enticing, yet frustrating.

DF: You’ve probably seen the Inside Macintosh books. There are five volumes now, and if you add to that the technical notes there’s probably two or three thousand pages of documentation. The problem with the Toolbox is not that it’s particularly profound at any point, although some of the graphic routines are pretty magical, but that it’s very big. To

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Help Wanted

We’re still looking for a permanent room at a good price. The room should accomodate 150 people, be centrally located on the West Side, and be as accessible as possible to a freeway.

We also need audiovisual equipment: an overhead projector and screen, and LCD viewers for both the PC (VGA support strongly preferred) and Mac. If you have a source for borrowing these or renting them cheaply, we’d sure like to know. Right now we’re spending between $150 and $250 each meeting for rental of the A/V equipment alone.

We also need your active participation in planning and putting on meetings, and in the newsletter. L.A.Fox needs:

Presenters

Suggestions (and phone numbers) for presenters

A club disk librarian

Someone to run a bulletin board

Advertising salesperson

LA. FOX